


Never Kill a Butterfly

by Ilthit



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/F, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Slash Goggles, Spirits, Triple Drabble, Wordcount: 100-500
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-12
Updated: 2019-11-12
Packaged: 2021-01-29 09:37:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21408070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ilthit/pseuds/Ilthit
Summary: It may be one of the spirits of the dead come to visit us.
Relationships: Tuuri Hotakainen/Sigrun Eide
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10
Collections: femslashficlets





	Never Kill a Butterfly

She sleeps under the ice, but there she also dreams. In her dreams, she is a white cabbage butterfly, flitting through thick wild forest.

The trees are old here, and rot where they have fallen. It is nothing like the built and open plains of Denmark, or the cultivated fecundity of her childhood home at Toivosaari, or even the sheep-island with its grazing grounds and wild berry patches. This is where she always wanted to run, where her heart called out to her, from beyond the spikes they had driven into the rising lake-bottom, beyond the cool mysterious waters.

She passes through the breaking sunlight, pale and shimmery so early in the morning, down into the shadow. Past hanging skulls, leather smeared with dark blood. Down towards her sleeping friends, nestled in protective magic that smells and tastes achingly familiar.

She settles on her cousin's nose for a moment, but he scrunches his nose and turns, and she must move. She finds another nose, shaded by leaves and a fall of red hair.

Sigrun does not move. The butterfly walks along to her forehead, careful to keep her footsteps soft on her faintly tanned skin, and presses her forehead on hers.

"I wish it had gone differently," she whispers, and in the logic of dreams she knows Sigrun has heard her too. "I wish we had had more time. But what happened wasn't your fault."

Sigrun's brow furrows, and Tuuri—that was her name, Tuuri—beats her wings to escape the hand that comes up to wipe her forehead. No, not forehead. Her eyes.

Sigrun sniffs, a gasp escaping her throat. Moisture like dew glistens in the corner of her eye; she sucks in breath, and then lies still, her chest rising and falling evenly.

Under the ice, Tuuri sleeps.


End file.
